Tag: Merced Speedway

Though the team’s primary focus is on winning the Antioch Speedway B Mod title, Curran headed down to Merced Speedway this past Wednesday to compete in their annual Fair Race. The team wanted a chance to test their dry slick setup, and with the track’s water truck breaking down early on a hot night, Curran got a bit drier of a surface than he had been expecting.

Due to IMCA point average lineups, Curran would start last in his 9 car heat. With only 3 cars transferring to the feature he would have plenty of work to do if he wanted to transfer directly from the heat race. Despite being in a stacked heat race, Curran would climb up to 5th to set himself up with a solid starting position in the B Main.

Though Curran rolled off 4th in the B Main, he quickly found his way to the front. Once Curran took the lead, there wasn’t anyone even close to being able to catch him, as he lead the remainder of the race to win by nearly 5 seconds.

Curran’s B Main win would start him towards the back for the feature as he started 14th. Over the course of the 25 lap feature, Curran carefully picked his spots, moving into the Top 10 in the early going. As the laps wound down, however, Curran just couldn’t find the room to move much further forward, and would ultimately come home with an 8th place finish.

Saturday night at Antioch started much better for Curran, who drew the pole for his heat race. Curran would go on to lead all 8 laps, leading by nearly a straightaway, as he picked up the heat race win in dominating fashion.

Since Curran had won the previous race, he would be forced to start 10th for the main event. With track conditions drier than many had ever seen at the speedway, the thick cloud of dust made it difficult to make moves in traffic.

Despite the dust, Curran was on the move early, moving up to 7th before a Lap 5 caution. A few laps later, Curran would grab 6th after a fellow competitor spun ahead of him.

On the restart, Curran would quickly grab 5th from Chris Sieweke, and was all over the back of Kevin Brown for 4th. Though it looked like Curran easily had the speed to get around Brown, there just wasn’t room on the track to make a move stick. Curran would go on to run the remainder of the race in 5th, where he’d ultimately finish.

Brent would like to thank all of his sponsors and supporters, including:

Steel City Motorsports

Steadfast Construction

GRT Race Cars Inc.

Empire RC

89 Design

All Flow Muffler & Auto Repair

Jeff Fields (Brandit Designs)

Red Six RaceGear

Velocita-USA

Interested in having writeups like these done for your race team throughout the season? Contact Daren Ricks of DRC Motorsports Media here on Facebook, at darenricks999@gmail.com or at (530) 828-0112 to discuss a plan that fits your team’s needs.

After a solid showing in Bakersfield the previous weekend, Pittsburg Sport Mod driver Keith Brown Jr headed down to Merced this past Friday and Saturday to compete in a special weekend doubleheader.

The team’s goal was simple: run well and keep the car in one piece. Based on those goals, it’s easy to say that this past weekend was a success.

Brown started off the weekend fast with an exciting heat race win Friday night. After inheriting the race lead on a mid race caution, Brown was able to hold off a spirited charge from Kevin Johnson take the win.

Though he won his heat race, the redraw did Brown no favors, lining him up 8th for the feature. Unfortunately for Brown, there wasn’t much passing to be made in Friday’s feature, ultimately settling for 9th.

After feeling the car was a bit off Friday, the team headed back home to make some adjustments to better attack the dry slick surface they encountered on night one. Those changes would ultimately put them behind the 8 ball in Saturday’s heat race, as the car struggled on a much heavier surface. Brown’s less than preferrable heat race run would result in him having to run a B Main if he wanted any chance of making the feature.

As soon as the green flag waved in the B Main, Brown was on the move. Brown would go from 8th to 4th on the opening lap, before eventually finishing 3rd and transferring to the main event.

Just like the B Main, Brown was on the move early and often in the feature. Brown quickly made his way into the Top 10 from his 15th place starting position. While Brown was steadily making progress, he started to encounter some slower cars as the laps went on, with those cars holding him back from what could have potentially been a Top 5 run. When all was said and done, Brown brought it home in 8th, his 2nd Top 10 in as many nights, and 3rd in the past 2 weekends.

Brown has another busy weekend planned this week, as he heads North to Chico’s Silver Dollar Speedway Friday night, before making the long trek down to Bakersfield Speedway on Saturday.

Keith would like to thank all of his sponsors and supporters, including:

My wife

Ricky Childress jr

My dad

Tim Barlow

Joe Glade

Darrell Hughes

Steel City Motorsports

JGE Motorsports

HRT Shock Service

Little J’s Burgers

Engine Quest

CTA Prints

Performance Bodies

Tire Demon

Competition CarburetorsInterested in having writeups like these done for your race team throughout the season? Contact Daren Ricks of DRC Motorsports Media here on Facebook, at darenricks999@gmail.com or at (916) 229-7474 to discuss a plan that fits your team’s needs.Daren RicksDRC Motorsports Media

While Darrell Hughes has spent the past few seasons proving to be a serious contender wherever he raced, the Manteca native took it to a whole new level in 2018. The 3rd generation talent stayed closer to home this past season, dominating most of the season at Merced Speedway en route to his first track title.

To say Hughes had the competition covered all season at his home track may be an understatement. Aside from one DNF early in the season, Hughes never finished outside the Top 5 at Merced all season. Hughes made his big push to take the track championship late in the season, winning five of the last seven races, including both the Timmy Post Memorial and the Tribute to Ed Parker, to amass an insurmountable point lead over the last 2 months of the season.

Though it wasn’t as successful of a trip as the team would have liked, Hughes credits the long haul to Arizona for the Arizona Modified Tour in Mid-February as big reason for the team’s jump in performance. The differences showed the few times Hughes travelled in 2018. Hughes excelled at one track in particular in his 2018 travels, Southern Oregon Speedway. After a Top 5 run at the track’s speedweek race in late June, Hughes returned in September for the 2nd annual R Charles Snyder Salute. The team looked like a contender all weekend, eventually falling just short to Bobby Hogge IV and earning a nice $2,500 payday for his effort.

Like many modified drivers in the region, Hughes capped off his season at the annual Duel in the Desert in Las Vegas. This year’s Duel was Hughes’s finest showing yet. Hughes made the preliminary features on both of the first 2 nights, highlighted by a heat race win and Top 10 on night 1. On the final day, Hughes would have to win his LCQ to make the big show, but would ultimately miss the transfer by just two spots, ending his weekend and season.

When asked about 2018 and his plans for 2019, Darrell said: “Hopefully we can get some help with tires and fuel so we can make it to the Arizona mod tour next month. I think a lot of our success in 2018 can be accredited to some stuff that we learned last February at Cocopah speedway.”

Season Stats:

Starts: 23

Wins: 5

Top 5’s: 15

Top 10’s: 17

Best Finish: 1st (5 times)

Worst Finish: 25th

Cocopah Speedway:

February 16th: 11th in B Main

February 17th: 19th

Merced Speedway:

April 14th (Tribute to Bill Egleston) : 3rd

April 28th: 16th

May 5th (Ted Stofle Classic): 2nd

May 19th: 5th

June 6th: 3rd

June 30th (Timmy Post Memorial) : 1st

July 7th: 2nd

July 21st: 4th

August 18th (Tribute to Ed Parker) : 1st

August 25th: 1st

September 15th: 1st

September 22nd (Championship Night) : 1st

October 5th: 5th

Southern Oregon Speedway:

June 23rd (Wild West Speedweek) : 4th

September 2nd (R Charles Snyder Salute) : 2nd

Siskiyou Motor Speedway:

June 22nd (Wild West Speedweek) : 12th

Coos Bay Speedway:

June 24th (Wild West Speedweek) : 18th

Ocean Speedway:

August 4th (Cecil Memorial) : DNF

Seotember 28th (Pat and Jim Pettit Shootout) : 5th

September 29th (Pat and Jim Pettit Shootout) : 10th

Las Vegas Motor Speedway Dirt Track:

Duel Recap:

Night 1: Won heat, finished 9th in the feature.

Night 2: Came from the B main and finished 25th after starting 28th

Night 3: Finished 3rd in LCQ, missing transfer by two spots

Darrell would like to thank all of his sponsors and supporters, including:

Victory Circle ChassisInterested in having writeups like these done for your race team throughout the 2019 season? Contact Daren Ricks of DRC Motorsports Media here on Facebook, at darenricks999@gmail.com or at (916) 229-7474 to discuss a plan that fits your team’s needs.Daren RicksDRC Motorsports Media